Vanessa Sauter

Vanessa Sauter is a program associate in the Cybersecurity & Technology Program at the Aspen Institute. She was previously an associate editor at Lawfare and received her bachelor's degree from Columbia University in 2016.

The Trump administration will limit visas to Chinese graduate students studying robotics, aviation, and high-tech manufacturing, Reuters reports. The change, effective June 11, is part of the administration’s strategy to “ensure that intellectual property is not transferred to our competitors,” according to one U.S. official.

The FBI overstated the number of encrypted devices it couldn’t access, the bureau announced in a statement on Tuesday, the Washington Post reports. FBI officials have been reporting to Congress and to the public that the bureau was locked out of nearly 7,800 devices in 2017. The correct number is closer to 1,200, according to an internal estimate.

On Tuesday, the White House announced its decision to eliminate the cybersecurity coordinator position, a move perplexing experts and congressmen alike, the New York Times reports. Rob Joyce, the last cyber coordinator who formerly ran the National Security Agency’s Tailored Access Operations unit, returned to Ft. Meade on Friday.

Unveiled financial records of Essential Consultants LLC—the company used by President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen to pay adult film actress Stormy Daniels—reveal payments from a firm associated with a Russian oligarch, the New York Times reports.

In March, Special Counsel Robert Mueller warned President Donald J. Trump’s legal team that he could issue a grand jury subpoena should the president resist meeting with the special counsel, according to the Washington Post. The escalation between the special counsel’s office and Trump’s legal team culminated in John Dowd’s resignation in late March.

The Supreme Court will hear oral argument on Wednesday in Trump v. Hawaii, the third iteration of Trump’s travel ban issued last September, reports the New York Times. The justices will consider whether restricting travelers from Syria, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Chad, and Somalia, the six Muslim countries of the eight listed in the Trump administration’s executive order, is unconstitutional.

Last week, CIA Director Mike Pompeo visited the American Enterprise Institute to join AEI Resident Fellow Marc Thiessen for a conversation to reflect on his first year running the agency and his vision for 2018 and beyond. They discussed the challenges posed by North Korea’s missile program, the war on terror, the Trump administration’s national security agenda, and the quotidian of being CIA director.